In the wake of the Amadou Diallo shooting, Police Commissioner Howard Safir said yesterday the NYPD has agreed to involve members of New York’s African community in new police training sessions.

Emerging from a closed-door meeting, Safir and leaders of the United African Congress, which represents nearly 200,000 Africans here, said the program is a first step toward improving relations and understanding between one of the city’s newest immigrant populations and the police.

Diallo, a native of Guinea in West Africa who worked in Manhattan as a street vendor, was gunned down by cops Feb. 4.

Safir said focus groups of cops and Africans will provide information that will help the NYPD adjust training for its officers.

“We have to move forward so that what happened to Amadou Diallo never happens to another person,” said Sidique Wai, the UAC president.

Safir said the initiative was “an excellent first step in doing something constructive between the African community and the Police Department.”

Wai did not criticize any leaders, such as the Rev. Al Sharpton, who has led several demonstrations against the police and the mayor.

“Everyone has a role,” he said, adding, “We want to pull people together of good will for a new beginning.”

He also said he had been meeting with Safir before Diallo’s death and has met twice since then with Mayor Giuliani, whom he described as “serious” about improving relations and preventing another tragedy.

Meanwhile, Stephen Worth, a lawyer for Edward McMellon, one of the four officers involved in the Diallo shooting, filed a motion in Bronx court yesterday seeking a delay in the grand-jury proceedings until the panel can be moved to a secret location. Worth cited the highly charged atmosphere, publicity and demonstrations outside the courthouse.

“No grand juror can remain impartial when, every time he or she approaches or leaves the [courthouse] … he or she must pass a gauntlet of protesters crying that the police have committed ‘murder’ and must be punished,” he wrote.

Lawyers for two other cops, Kenneth Boss Jr. and Richard Murphy, say they support Worth’s motions, but Marvyn Kornberg, who represents Officer Sean Carroll, declined to endorse the request for a halt in the proceeding.